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I disagree. Mauer was signed when he was 1 year away from free agency. Posey was 3 years away. I also would guess that Mauer at the time of his signing projected better than Posey does today (though I'm too lazy to actually go check). And while I wouldn't want to sign any catcher to an 8 year contract, at least the Twins can always get Mauer ABs at DH on his non-catching days.

I don't think I'd be a good general manager, because I don't trust any contract above about five years. I realize they have to shell out occasionally, but... a lot of things can happen in nine years.

I always say that as a gm, you look at the last two years of these contracts as deferred money. Any performance you get out of the player in those years is a plus. It's the penalty you pay to get players at this level.

I always say that as a gm, you look at the last two years of these contracts as deferred money. Any performance you get out of the player in those years is a plus. It's the penalty you pay to get players at this level.

I used to buy this argument, but somewhere around Arod's extension the biggest contracts just got so long and large that there was just no way for bonus value on the front end to justify the back end. And that's not even counting the chances of significant injury above and beyond normal aging.

I used to buy this argument, but somewhere around Arod's extension the biggest contracts just got so long and large that there was just no way for bonus value on the front end to justify the back end. And that's not even counting the chances of significant injury above and beyond normal aging.

I don't apply rules of logic to Yankee contracts(his Texas contract ultimately was a good investment).

The argument boils down to that mlb pay/value has been linear, when in reality it should be more top heavy. MLB has managed to take what should be a top heavy contract and extended it out over extra years. Nobody makes $40 mil a year, while some players have been valued at that high of an amount, the reason why, is that instead of giving a guy $40 mil a year, he ends up signing for 25mil a year and sticks around for another two extra years.

Current rate of pay for a contract is roughly 5mil per war. This contract assumes 33 war over the next 9 years. Being a catcher, you expect a rapid decline, but also should hope for a couple of MVP type of years. He's 25 now, if you get 6 war average out of him from now until his age 29 season(4 years= 24 war) then expect a decline year(4) and an average or two(4) that puts you right about even, with two years remaining on his contract. At this point in time you are looking at a guy who might be hitting some career milestones that would be marketable. In my opinion that is a very realistic take on the situation, and doesn't account for any inflation that salaries generally seem to take(other words, dollars per war generally goes up, I don't think it's ever gone down)

Also note, that I think a players value isn't linear, that a 6 war player is worth more than 6 times the cost of a 1 war player(who is being overpaid, but that is a different discussion), but that to get that 6 war player you have to pay extra, and MLB system means that extra comes in the form of longer contracts, not higher pay.

Mauer had a .891 OPS up through his age 26 season and no serious injuries that I remember.

Posey has an .883 OPS so far, and one very serious injury.

Offensively they are similar, to Poseys credit league OPS seems to be declining, but he's hitting in the weaker circuit. But when you have 3 cheap years left that's a huge risky commitment you probably don't have to make yet, and Mauer's contract is proof that you should always plan for injuries and decline, esp. with catchers.

I thnk Posey's deal wins though because league revenues over his deal seem to be a lock to be substantially higher than they did for Mauers, so his $18M a year will be something like 15% of average team payroll over the deal, while Mauer's $23M a year likely ends up being closer to 25%.

Mauer was/is pretty often dinged up too though with wear and tear issues, especially when he was younger, whereas Posey has the one traumatic injury - I don't know which one you'd really say was considered more durable at their age. I'd probably give the nod to Posey if anything.

This year is going to tell us a lot about who Posey "actually" is as a hitter - as his owner in a keeper league I very much hope last year's variety is what we can expect from here on out.

I always say that as a gm, you look at the last two years of these contracts as deferred money. Any performance you get out of the player in those years is a plus. It's the penalty you pay to get players at this level.

If only teams would actually think like that, rather than feeling obligated to play the ancient players in the last few years of their contracts.

But they had Posey under control for 4 more years. If we accept that years 8 and 9 are just the price you pay, then he has to earn the extra year 8 and 9 money in years 5 through 7 (plus savings vs. going year-to-year for the first 4). Posey could put up 30 WAR over the next 4 years and the Giants would have only saved, what, $10 M vs. what they would have paid him anyway. They have to nearly break even on the last 5 years ($107 M) to break even overall.

The economics of buyouts is a lot different than the economics of an FA contract.

But they had Posey under control for 4 more years. If we accept that years 8 and 9 are just the price you pay, then he has to earn the extra year 8 and 9 money in years 5 through 7 (plus savings vs. going year-to-year for the first 4). Posey could put up 30 WAR over the next 4 years and the Giants would have only saved, what, $10 M vs. what they would have paid him anyway. They have to nearly break even on the last 5 years ($107 M) to break even overall.

You are correct about the economics being different. (although I'm not sure it's best to assume that cost per war stays flat )
Note: My comment was mostly on the long term contracts, I wasn't really talking about specifics of this issue, which does have the player in control already issue. As it stands though some teams like the certainty of signing the guy. From the looks of the individual years, none of them seem to be out of line with what you expect him to get in arbitration. The Giants had already agreed to pay him 8 mil this year, and it's reasonable to expect that on a year by year basis his salary would have gone up. This contract goes

Seems pretty reasonable for certainty and stability. It allows the team to plan their future roster with one name locked down, instead of worrying about over the horizon. You still have the issue with him being a catcher of course.

I'd note that Posey's 172 OPS+ last year is, to my knowledge, the second highest full season OPS+ ever for a catcher. Piazza had a 185 year and a 172 in strike shortened 1995. Mauer had a 171 in his MVP year. Napoli had a 173 in 2011, but only had 432 PAs.

I'd note that Posey's 172 OPS+ last year is, to my knowledge, the second highest full season OPS+ ever for a catcher. Piazza had a 185 year and a 172 in strike shortened 1995. Mauer had a 171 in his MVP year. Napoli had a 173 in 2011, but only had 432 PAs.

And Piazza was the only one that was a full time catcher.(or even had more than 115 games at catcher that season) Imagine if he could wrap his head around playing firstbase once in a while, without it being detrimental to his offense.

And Piazza was the only one that was a full time catcher.(or even had more than 115 games at catcher that season) Imagine if he could wrap his head around playing firstbase once in a while, without it being detrimental to his offense.

Posey? He started 29 games at first last season and had an OPS of 1.093 in those starts.

So, it's $57m over Posey's four arb years, and $110 for his five FA years. The Giants already had him for 8m for 2013. I'll guess he would have made out nicely in his last three arb years. Maybe... $45m? Not too far from what was agreed to, for Posey's arb years. The difference means the Giants signed on to Posey's age 30-34 seasons for something like 115m-120m. Mike Piazza averaged 124 games a year during that time, with 18.7 bWAR. Johnny Bench averaged 107 games a year, with 14,5 bWAR. Lil Pudge? 130 games, with 17.9 bWAR.

I wouldn't have made this deal, but it doesn't strike me as completely crazy. Those are the guys who didn't fall apart, but players on HOF paths generally don't. None of them, though, were worth what Posey will get for the season the Giants didn't have to pay him for.

Posey has also given evidence for exactly one season that he's a HOF talent, and that took a BABIP I don't think he'll see again. The Giants could easily have just spent 167m on a guy who's a true talent 4 win player and if that's the case he's likely to be a part timer at best by the time the contract ends.

edit: piazza, bench, and pudrod all peaked by 27 and 28, too. It's not that they weren't good, after, it's just the Giants are volunteering for at least some of the sour rind of Posey's career, without any obvious imperative to do so.

cfb ... fair enough. Wasn't trying to pick on you, just pointing out the differences. I think you're right in general -- teams decide what they expect over the next X years and put a total price on that and would rather spread X out over 8 years than 6 (or whatever). Even here one assumes that at some point the Giants offered something along the lines of 7/$124 and his agent chuckled.

#18 ... yeah, that's where I was going. $/WAR will be going up so 18 WAR at $107 should be just fine and it might even be at the point where 15 WAR is break-even. But my instinct would be to just take him year-to-year.

2016 is his arb 4 year actually. That looks like market arb rate to me. They had him this year at $8 which put him on probably something like a 8/12/16/20 path. I'll grant you that if he won another MVP or close to it, you're probably looking at maybe as much as 8/16/20/20 ... but like I said, that's only about $10-12 M savings.

I'm starting to wonder if they're expecting the DH in the NL sometime in the next 5 years or so.

Cameron mentioned an important point which I think about whenever we have a deal like this - the signing team enjoys information about the player that a new team wouldn't enjoy. Between that and thediscount the player is giving in exchange for certainty, teams should normally get good deals in this situation.B-Pro/Swartz on info asymetry.

I'm with Walt. Posey's made relatively nothing in his career so far and gains a ton of certainty from a longterm deal. In return, you'd think the Giants would get a bit more of a break on price. Or, to look at it another way, if the Giants waited 2 years, Posey's almost certainly not going to be coming off an MVP/World Series Champ season. They'd also have a bit more info about his health.

Between that and thediscount the player is giving in exchange for certainty, teams should normally get good deals in this situation.

Generally speaking I think teams have been getting great deals, especially on hitters. I'm not sure information asymmetry has that much to do with it -- teams aren't letting good young players get anywhere near FA (see the Verlander thread) so what information other teams have is irrelevant. There's information asymmetry between us punters and the team doing the signing which may make deals that look bad to us look good to them.

Could this be one of those deals? Possibly. If Posey had been an FA this past offseason, how much more than 9/$190 do you think he would have gotten? He'd have been the top FA for sure so at least $25 M per year is almost a given but I'm not sure who's lining up to give a C 9 years. I'll call it somewhere in the range of 8/$200 to 9/$240.

Now the Giants had the first 4 years at a discount anyway so this contract represents a savings of about $25 M vs. that 9/$240 number (about $5 M a year for the last 5 years of the contract) in exchange for locking in 3-4 years earlier than they had to. They're getting 9 years for the cost of 8 or, hopefully, 3-4 extra WAR. Looking at age 34 C seasons, Posey's probably a good bet to still be worth 3 WAR at that stage -- heck, Jason Kendall was.

Anyway, it just seems the Giants aren't getting a discount in the arb years (relative to what they'd have had to pay anyway). They are getting a discount in the FA years but it's only a discount if Posey is either a durable C or a genuine 140-150 OPS+ bat (it's a savings vs. Tex/AGon/Prince money).

Generally speaking I think teams have been getting great deals, especially on hitters. I'm not sure information asymmetry has that much to do with it -- teams aren't letting good young players get anywhere near FA (see the Verlander thread) so what information other teams have is irrelevant. There's information asymmetry between us punters and the team doing the signing which may make deals that look bad to us look good to them.

I'm not really sure what information the teams could have that makes a long term deal safer, though. I could see lot of information (particularly medical information, but make-up as well) which could make significantly riskier investment, but I don't think there's any kind of info they could have which would make them think that a player more than marginally better than average risk. I'm no doctor, but I don't think that one can look at an MRI and say "wow, that's an adamantine ACL! You could smash his knee with a 6-pound sledgehammer and he'd walk it off." So much of good health and aging is just down to luck.

I always say that as a gm, you look at the last two years of these contracts as deferred money. Any performance you get out of the player in those years is a plus. It's the penalty you pay to get players at this level.

Also, most GMs can pretty much ignore any ramifications 7+ years out. Two things can happen by then. Either the team and player were successful along the way in which case the team can afford it, or they flamed out in which case the GM gets fired and it isn't his problem anymore.

Between now and when Posey would have reached FA status the Dodgers will sign a new TV contract expected to be in the range of 7-8 Billion for 25 years.
With the funds to support a payroll in the 400M range you have to ask how much it would be worth for the Dodgers to sign away (possibly) the best catcher in baseball, and the best player for their arch-rivals. 30M a year? 40M a year? More?

And the Yankees have a hole at catcher as well. Those two teams bidding against each other could lead to an absolutely insane contract.

I think the Giants management wanted to preemptively say that no matter how much money they have Posey will never catch for the Dodgers.

Separately, looking at the players they have, if Posey moves to another position full time I am pretty sure it would be 3b, not 1b.

Cameron mentioned an important point which I think about whenever we have a deal like this - the signing team enjoys information about the player that a new team wouldn't enjoy. Between that and thediscount the player is giving in exchange for certainty, teams should normally get good deals in this situation.

B-Pro/Swartz on info asymetry.

Yeah, it's a great point. The kind of thing that doesn't particularly occur to me but when I read the point, thought, 'of course'. We downplay character in these parts perhaps a little too much, but one thing that's encouraging about, say, the Mets long term deal with David Wright that probably won't be quite worth what they're paying him, is that Wright will surely bust his ass to stay in shape. Granted that's not exactly proprietary info, but in many cases team's will know exactly how hard a player does or doesn't work to come back from injury, or how willing he is to listen to the right advice when he's struggling.

I'm with Walt. Posey's made relatively nothing in his career so far and gains a ton of certainty from a longterm deal. In return, you'd think the Giants would get a bit more of a break on price. Or, to look at it another way, if the Giants waited 2 years, Posey's almost certainly not going to be coming off an MVP/World Series Champ season. They'd also have a bit more info about his health.

Another solid point. Worst case, how much more would the Giants have to pay Posey if he cranks out a couple of 6 win seasons in 2013 and 2015?

Hmm. It also occurs to me though that I'm lousy projecting this stuff. I always think salaries have peaked but after their latest tv deal it looks like the Dodgers could afford a $300m payroll in 2015. It might be that a couple more years like 2012 puts Posey in the 30m per neighborhood. Still, I wouldn't do this deal. Teams that emphasize young guys and use 30+ year old vets only to fill in are more interesting to me.

I'm not really sure what information the teams could have that makes a long term deal safer, though.

In terms of injury, maybe not much although hopefully genuine professional pitching coaches are better at recognizing guys with good form than we are.

In terms of whether the guy works hard, parties at night, is a jerk in the clubhouse, etc. they probably have a lot more info than we do and that will understandably affect a team's willingness to want the guy around for 9 years (and maybe affects performance/longevity).

For a guy like Posey in particular, hopefully they have a more accurate idea of how long he'll be able to stick at C (basically how good his defense is now) than our basic demographic knowledge that Cs aren't durable.

As outside statnerd observers, I think we have a good idea of how Posey is likely to age as a hitter and the general age curve. That will get us in the ballpark. But so much of his future value does hinge on whether he stays at C in his early 30s. I have no specific knowledge of that at all.

Between now and when Posey would have reached FA status the Dodgers will sign a new TV contract expected to be in the range of 7-8 Billion for 25 years. With the funds to support a payroll in the 400M range you have to ask how much it would be worth for the Dodgers to sign away (possibly) the best catcher in baseball, and the best player for their arch-rivals. 30M a year? 40M a year? More?

It's not clear it would be at all harmful to the Giants if the Dodgers grossly overpaid for Posey's age 30-34 seasons.

And the Yankees have a hole at catcher as well.

And on the off chance that the Yankees will maintain that hole at C through the 2016 season, the Giants should commit now to Posey from 2017 to 2021?

This is the whole point and I'm not sure you grasp it. The Giants had Posey through 2016 and there's nothing the Yankees, Dodgers or Posey could do about that. The bulk of Posey's value over the next 9 years is most likely going to be in those first 4 that the Giants already owned. They don't seem to have gotten a very big discount on those four years.

Yes, there's a very good chance that, if Posey became an FA in 2017 that he would get more than $21.4 M per year. There's also a very good chance that Posey ages 30-34 won't be worth $21.4 M per year much less the $25 or $30 or whatever he might get. There's also a reasonable chance that Posey will be a bust (injured, reduced to 1B, just a good, not excellent hitter) by 2017.

We don't have to go too far to find a reasonable scary counter-example. After 3.5 years of ML time, Brian McCann had 11 WAR and was coming off an age 24 season with 5.5 WAR. He had been durable and his batting line was 297/358/501 with a 122 OPS+. That's worse than Posey but he was a year younger and it's worse because he never had Posey's 2012. In the 4 seasons since then, he's had 10 WAR. He's entering his age 29 season and is coming off a lousy season. The Braves have him for this year at $12 M (a good deal still) then he's an FA. Unless he has a 2012 Posey season this year, he will not be getting signed for 21 M a year. If he has a good year I could see him getting $15. Anyway, he had 11 WAR in his first 3 years, 10 WAR in the 4 years after that, we can't really project more than 10 WAR for the next 5 years. If Posey did something similar, he'd give them just 24 WAR over the life of this contract and (most relevant to the debate) just 12 WAR for the last $107 M they didn't have to commit to. If the Dodgers wanted to pay $150+ M in 2017 dollars for that, I'd be happy to let them.

Mauer is the other obvious current example. His age 26 season was Posey's age 25 season but he also had one injured/sub-standard season. He has put up 19 WAR from 26-29. That's the part the Giants already had. I doubt we can project Mauer to surpass that WAR total from ages 30-34. The Twins have him through age 35 (eek) so they will pay $138 M for a projected 18 WAR or so.

Now, the Giants will be paying about $8 M less in raw dollars for Posey's age 30-34 and so that's maybe a max $12 M after inflation. And they're not on the hook for age 35. So, yeah, it looks like a much better contract than the Mauer one. If Posey puts up 35-40 WAR over the life of this contract then oh happy day but half of that would be costing the $107 M they didn't need to commit to. That's $6.5 M/WAR which is not an unreasonable guess at where $/WAR might be for 2017-21, maybe even a little low.

I keep liking it a little bit less. The break-even point looks to be around that 18 WAR for ages 30-34 which is certainly possible (see the earlier list) but he's unlikely to surpass it by any substantial amount and runs a large risk of not meeting it.

And, again, it almost doesn't matter if he puts up 30 WAR over the next 4 years because they had control over those 4 years regardless.

It's a bit like taking out a mortgage that is interest-only (with prepay penalty) for the first 4 years and then refinancing to include another 5 years of full principal and interest at a fixed rate but with a 9-year prepay penalty. You come out OK if it's a house you want to live in and interest rates rise substantially. You really only come out ahead if property prices go through the roof sometime in years 5-9.

And to Bhaakon, I assume they also have a better grasp on how marketable the player is and how much revenue that player (or a win in general) will generate for them. If Mauer was expected to generate enough revenue for the Twins to make that $23 M worthwhile then maybe Posey projects to generate enough revenue that he'd have been worth $27 M to the Giants ... in which case they could make a very nice profit on the back end of the deal.

While I agree from a pure dollars to WAR perspective the Giants could have waited a few years to extend Posey, it's worth keeping in mind that him signing for another team (especially the Dodgers) would be an absolute PR disaster for the organization. Giants fans are pretty laid back for the most part, but that would generate a Jeter-signing-for-the-Red-Sox-in-2002 level of outrage.

He's been in the majors for 3 years, the Giants have won the world series twice (and he was injured the year they didn't win). He gets a lot of the credit for that. No one around here is going to be too angry if he's making more money than he's worth at the end of this contract.

For the lower income teams the increasing income from national TV and MLBAM (probably crossing 100M combined a team this year) will increase their income by as much as 100% by 2016.
For the high income teams the local media income will increase their revenues by as much as 100%.
The ones in between will balance the previous two but also add the increasing use of variable pricing of tickets which really benefits them.

Overall, it is already clear from contracts signed or discussed that MLB income will increase by at least 50% by 2016.